Chapter 22 2. North and North of Huaihe River

33 degrees north latitude may have special significance to the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization.At this latitude, the Qinling Mountains at an altitude of 2,000 meters in the central and western regions block the cold and warm air currents from the north to the south, and extend to the east to the Huaihe River.The Huaihe River and the Qinling Mountains together constitute the division of China's 800mm precipitation line: in the north, the annual precipitation is below 800mm; in the south, the annual precipitation is above 800mm. With this as the boundary, the land of China is divided into the south and the north.

The north, which belongs to the warm temperate sub-humid region, is a vast dry farming plain. Wheat and soybeans grow on the fertile loess, as well as deciduous broad-leaved forests, such as the pagoda trees planted by Fu Jian beside the national road in the former Qin Dynasty.Every autumn and winter, the mountains and plains are golden, and then turn black in a blink of an eye.When the river and the air are frozen, the world is filled with a murderous atmosphere. This is where bloody males are born. The south is a humid subtropical region, and the average temperature in January is above zero degrees Celsius.Most of the trees are evergreen broad-leaved forests, and the main crops are rice and rapeseed.There are also water chestnuts and lotus roots in the lakes without ice, and of course fish, shrimps and crabs.In the season when the wind blows the fragrance of rice and flowers on both sides of the river, the passionate woman will present her man with singing, dancing and delicious food.

It is no wonder that once the regime established in the north is withdrawn to the south, it will become civilized and military, and Hangzhou will be regarded as Bianzhou.It is no wonder that from ancient times to the present, it is always the armed forces in the north that have been raised on millet and sticks to rule the world. Hehe, the strong grass is fresh in the north of Hebei, and the spring rain of apricot blossoms in the south of the Yangtze River. The north and south of the Huaihe River have different scenery. The Sixteen Kingdoms and the Southern and Northern Dynasties are also different eras.

The difference is significant.From a political point of view, the sixteen countries were divided, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties were semi-unified.From the perspective of civilization, the Wuhu is not as good as the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the Northern Dynasty is worse than the Southern Dynasty.That is to say, after the divided sixteen kingdoms became the unified Northern Wei Dynasty, the historical process was reversed: the north of the Hu people continued to progress, while the south of the Han people went from bad to worse.Advance north and retreat south, the great cause of reunification can only be accomplished by the north.

All of this is related to the north-south dividing line. In fact, since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Huaihe River has been both a geographical boundary and a military boundary.Later Zhao and Eastern Jin, Former Yan and Eastern Jin, Former Qin and Eastern Jin all ruled across the Huai River.From east to west on the south bank of the Huaihe River, Huaiyin, Bengbu, Huainan, and Xinyang have almost always been the frontier outposts and borders of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It can be said that without the Huaihe River, there would be no Eastern Jin Dynasty. Similarly, if there is no rule across the Huai River, there will be no South and North.

Yes, in the ideological system of Chinese civilization, there was no concept of North and South.North and South, like East and West, are the periphery of "China", not two opposing halves.From the Shang and Zhou Dynasties to the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Chinese nation has always believed that they live in the right center of the world, and that there is only one center in the world.This center was called China before the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and it was called the Central Plains after the Wei and Jin Dynasties. The center is first and foremost cultural.That is to say, the culturally advanced Xia and Hua people are in the middle, and the east, west, north and south are the barbarians and Rongdi.After the birth of the unified empire, the center took on political significance again, that is, the imperial capital was located in the center, and the east, west, north, south, and north were the counties of the empire.In other words, before the Qin and Han dynasties there was only China and the Quartet, and in the Qin and Han dynasties there were only the central and local governments, and there was no south and north bounded by the Huaihe River.

The center of the Han Dynasty was Chang'an and Luoyang, while in the Wei and Jin Dynasties there was only Luoyang.Luoyang's geographical location is just north of the middle of the north-north dividing line from the Qinling Mountains to the Huaihe River.It seems that Zhou Gong and others called Luoyang "China" (please refer to the third volume of the history of China "Founders") for no reason, and they can even be said to have unique insight.What's more, from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Western Jin Dynasty, Luoyang has been the imperial capital for nearly three hundred years, and of course it is the center.

However, the fall of Luoyang in 311 AD and the fall of Chang'an five years later changed all this.On the one hand, these two ancient civilized cities were ravaged like Rome and Milan under the blade of the Germanic barbarians; At this point, we have several choices. The first is to abandon Chang'an and Luoyang, and move the Chinese civilization to the south in an all-round way, revive it with Jiankang as the center, and develop to the further south of Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan, and realize the complete Chineseization of these areas, just like Alexander Then the Hellenization of North Africa.The Central Plains area was handed over to the Hu people, allowing them to develop and build their own civilization, just like Rome in the north of Greece.

Unfortunately this is not possible.There is not only one ethnic group, but five people who ruled the Central Plains.None of them could compare to Rome.The Han people and scholar-bureaucrats on the left side of the Anjiang River were unwilling to give in, and even until the Chen Dynasty still hoped to regain the Central Plains.In fact, they may not have this ability, but because of the reasons that will be mentioned later, this wish has never been realized. So other options are equally impossible.For example, the northern barbarians will unify China and realize the complete barbarianization of the whole of China.Or conversely, the Wuhu who entered China respected the Jiankang government as their suzerain, formed the Chinese Federation with the Jin emperor as the emperor, and then integrated into the Chinese civilization to realize their complete Sinicization.

Obviously, all this is tantamount to nonsense. There are many reasons for the impossibility, such as the barriers of the Qinling Mountains and the Huaihe River, and the fact that the overall national and military strength of the two sides is evenly matched.More importantly, both Hu and Han agree with Chinese civilization, and the dispute is only about who has more representative power.Of course, Jiankang and the Han nationality will not automatically abstain. Northern Hu people, such as Fu Jian from the former Qin Dynasty or Tuoba from the Northern Wei Dynasty, claim that only they represent the authenticity of China.

Both Hu and Han think that they are the Chinese and the boss. Thus, one center became two, just one south and one north. The result was the Southern and Northern Dynasties. With the Northern and Southern Dynasties, there was the South and the North. There is nothing wrong with dividing the land into north and south, but there are problems with the two centers.Because from the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the Han and Wei dynasties, Chinese civilization has always focused on one place first, and then spread to the periphery where the cultural atmosphere is thin.What's more, many centers mean no center, unless they are interdependent and have their own division of labor like Chang'an and Luoyang: Chang'an integrates east and west, Luoyang connects north and south; Chang'an represents progress, and Luoyang represents stability. This is not the case with Jiankang and the "Hudu" in the north. What's more, the capitals of the Hu people are scattered all over the place, and they are still uncertain. Looking at it this way, Tuoba Hong's move to Luoyang is of great significance.In fact, it was here that he straightened out his thinking for the later Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty and Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty, conducted pilot projects, accumulated experience, gathered popularity, and left hope.Even though both the Eastern Wei and Western Wei abandoned Luoyang, and even though Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty founded a new empire and Emperor Taizong of Tang built a new civilization, they were not in Luoyang but in Chang'an. In fact, Chang'an also has a distinguished status.After all, Guanzhong is the land of Longxing in Zhou, Qin and Western Han Dynasties.Of the four heavenly kings in the Five Hus—the former Zhao of the Huns, the Later Zhao of the Jie people, the former Qin of the Di people, and the Later Qin of the Qiang people, three of them had Chang'an as their capital (Liu Yao of the former Zhao, Fu Jian of the former Qin, Yao Chang of the later Qin ), probably not without reason. Only Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty and Wu Zetian preferred Luoyang. In comparison, Jiankang is far behind. Jiankang, now called Nanjing, was originally an extraordinary place.Zhuge Liang once praised in this way: Zhongshan is on a dragon plate, stones are sinking and tigers are crouching, this is the emperor's house!But how?Wang Junlou's boat went down to Yizhou, and Jinling's royal spirit was sadly taken away.Since the Western Jin Dynasty destroyed Wu, the regimes established here were all short-lived small dynasties. It is not without reason that the Northern Wei Dynasty called the Jiankang government "Arrogant Jin". However, even if Sun Wu is not counted, Jiankang has a continuous history of 270 years as the imperial capital, which is not much shorter than Luoyang. On the contrary, the Northern Wei Dynasty fell into civil strife shortly after moving the capital to Luoyang.What's more, the potential of the South has been shown as early as the Three Kingdoms period.Cao Cao pacified the heroes of the north like the autumn wind sweeps the fallen leaves, but he was still unable to cross the Yangtze River, which is proof. It seems that neither Jiankang nor Luoyang has to be responsible for history, only people are responsible.In fact, the chaos in the Central Plains and the confrontation between the North and the South will last for 270 to 80 years, probably because there are problems in both the South and the North.It's just that in the time of the Sixteen Kingdoms, there were more troubles in the north, so the Wuhu was not as good as the Eastern Jin Dynasty; in the era of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the problems in the south were even greater, so the Northern Dynasty was better than the Southern Dynasty. So, what's their problem?

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Notes: . , Zhou Shifen, "Eleven Lectures on Chinese History".